Month: May 2007

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my situation and I’ve come to some grand conclusions:

It sucks

We have too much debt

Pretty obvious, I guess. But see here’s the problem. While camping over memorial weekend, it occurred to me that this is probably going to be the only time we will have this summer to go camping. Not really a problem, I guess, except that we purchased (financed) a camper 3 years ago and have 12 years left on the loan. I LOVE my camper. It is perfect for us and I love everything about it. But, it doesn’t really make sense to continue to finance this luxury item that we only use a few times a year when the bank is looking for 3 mortgage payments from us. Did i mention that i LOVE my camper? Ugh. I know what needs to be done, but I don’t want to do it. Finding the perfect camper is like finding the perfect spouse. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration, but we literally spent months going to camper shows and looking online, talking to other campers, and peeking in hundreds of camper windows on dozens of lots.

I keep trying to convince myself that the money will come in eventually and everything can get caught up. Who am I trying to kid? I don’t have my own vehicle, the cable’s been shut off, the cell phones are about to get shut off, and we just had to borrow some money from family yesterday to pay the mortgage before the bank starts foreclosure procedures.

Well, I guess 3 months is as long as you can go without paying your cable before they turn you off. Yup. Came home from camping Sunday night and there was no more cable tv.

Talked to hubby for a few minutes while I was working on other things. Told him that we should do some major cutbacks. Sell some things. Dump some loans. Explained to him that even though he is starting to make money, by the time we get caught up on our bills, we won’t have any money saved for winter. Surprisingly, he agreed.

So, it doesn’t really hurt my feelings that the cable got shut off. Just saved me a step. Plus, it was an opportunity to get my hubby on board with my get-out-of-debt-and-save-our-lives plan. We never really discussed finances before. Just lived day to day buying what we wanted (usually on credit). I think this will be good for us. Besides, maybe if there is less stress in my life we can finally get pregnant.

Anybody want to buy a camper? It’s pretty nice. Only selling it for what we owe.

My lease ended on my trailblazer yesterday. I drove to the dealer, handed over the keys and walked away. I’m not happy. I’m actually quite mad. Never in my life did I imagine that I would be in this position someday. I didn’t get to turn it in and lease something new. I didn’t turn it in knowing that in a few days or weeks we would look around and get something else. Nope. Just turned it in.

I’m not without transportation. We have a dump truck for the business, a used F-250 that we bought last month for the business and a leased F-350 that we are getting raped on. Because the mowing season is under way, there are two trucks on the road at all times. This leaves a truck for me. The F-350. It’s leased and currently over miles. It’s dirty (it was used primarily for the business for the past 1 1/2 years). It’s huge. It’s loud (diesel). It’s not mine. It was purchased for my husband to drive. Now I’m driving it because I don’t have my own vehicle any more.

This is only one thorn in my side. There are many, many more. Stay tuned.

Well, here I am. I have started this blog to vent my frustrations. Hey, don’t judge me. It’s cheaper than therapy.

You may be wondering why I named this blog “The American Dream is Killing Me”.

Everybody grows up and has a vision of what they want their life to be like in the future. What job will they have? Who will they marry? How many kids will they have? What neighborhood will they live in? What kind of vehicles will they drive? Most of these questions are answered early in childhood. Kids see what makes them happy, or what they imagine would make them happy and decide how they are going to live when they grow up.

I had my dreams. Grow up, marry my high school sweetheart, live in the town we grew up in. Enjoy the good life. Have 3 or 4 kids. Work for a good company, make a good living. I was blessed with the gift of intelligence, and my husband was blessed with physical strength, ambition, and communication skills. We make a good team. This should have been easy. We have wonderful parents, gradparents and siblings. From the outside looking in, we are the perfect family living the “american dream”. We are pretty good at keeping up appearances.

Somewhere along the way everything started falling apart. One by one. The pursuit of living the american dream is killing me a little chunk at a time.